A story broke today that Upper Deck was caught red-handed counterfeiting the famous Yu-Gi-Oh! card game cards that Konami apparently owns. Upper Deck used to produce the popular cards but recently lost them. Upper Deck slid past a lawsuit from Topps, where they claimed that Upper Deck was using some of Topps’ designs on there cards (O-Pee-Chee inserts) this year. Upper Deck was cleared of that, but this is much bigger, and if the lawsuit works for Konami, Upper Deck would be paying a hefty fine. This fine could bring down the entire company.

So what does this exactly mean to collector’s? Well, Upper Deck was slapped with some pretty big losses, such as the loss to produce licesnsed basketball and baseball products. They did however, manage to score the Collegiate market, which in itself is small. But because of that gain, as far as I know, the small, but trustworthy college football card producer SA-GE is out of buisness. Many collector’s are now wondering how good Upper Deck’s game used and autograph abilities are. Will this lawsuit unlock what is behind closed doors?

For those who don’t know, game used cards are pieces of game used equipment put into cards. These are starting to be questioned by every company in the game except for the ones below the radar.

What does it mean for the value of overall cards? Well if Upper Deck goes out of buisness, it’s last set (whatever that would be at the time) would probably be sought after, since it is the last one. If it is found out that we are all holding counterfeit game used? The price will surely drop dramatically.

But what about the counterfeit game cards that Upper Deck produced? Surely, I would think they would be a collector’s item, since after all, those 600,000 pieces of paper may put one company out buisness. There are ways to find out what the difference is, I might research just for fun on that one day.

So what does it mean for the possibly remaining big two, Panini – America and Topps? The collegiate market and hockey market would have to find new homes. But it would make Panini-America the sole producer of licensed football cards, since Topps can’t produce them anymore.

I know more is to come, so I will keep everyone posted on developments to come.